Psalms 119:150

119:150 Those who are eager to do ¹  wrong draw near;

they are far from your law.

Psalms 119:155

119:155 The wicked have no chance for deliverance, ² 

for they do not seek your statutes.

Jeremiah 2:5

2:5 This is what the Lord says:

“What fault could your ancestors ³  have possibly found in me

that they strayed so far from me? ⁴ 

They paid allegiance to ⁵  worthless idols, and so became worthless to me. ⁶ 

Ephesians 2:13

2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who used to be far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ⁷ 

[119:150]  ¹ tn Heb “those who pursue.”

[119:155]  ² tn Heb “far from the wicked [is] deliverance.”

[2:5]  ³ tn Heb “fathers.”

[2:5]  ⁴ tn Or “I did not wrong your ancestors in any way. Yet they went far astray from me.” Both translations are an attempt to render the rhetorical question which demands a negative answer.

[2:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “They went/followed after.” This idiom is found most often in Deuteronomy or covenant contexts. It refers to loyalty to God and to his covenant or his commandments (e.g., 1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (e.g., Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (i.e., to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (e.g., 2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (see, e.g., Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

[2:5]  ⁶ tn The words “to me” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context: Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing,” which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

[2:13]  ⁷ tn Or “have come near in the blood of Christ.”